mexlinux.com

For the SAP project, in order to host the expensive Windows Server 2008,  Microsoft-SQL and the even more expensive SAP server, the SAP integrators have recommended us to run it in top of Citrix XenServer, in order to have an easier maintenance, migration, backup, scenarios…

Here comes the fun, Citrix XenServer, is no other thing that a Linux Distribution Focused on Xen Virtualization, so in the end, the whole expensive proprietary software is going to end up running in top of Linux (what he knows, we all benefit from).

The bad side, in order to control the XenServer you need a client named XenCenter that only runs in Windows, nevertheless I have read about a coming web version. And about the OpenXenCenter project that will bring a Linux client. (there is of course the CLI option).

Since I don’t use Windows on my laptop I have installed the XenCenter inside the Windows 2008 that is running inside the XenServer, and I can control via RDP by tsclient from my Ubuntu Laptop.

I have been running an email, web and file server for more than 8 years.
As a server I have a regular $500US non branded PC with Linux.

The original PC stood on-line for 5 years without any maintenance or care (just automatic updates included in the distro), after 5 years the main disk got logically damaged, I simply replaced the disk reinstalled a newer distro, recovered the data from the old PC and voilà up again, during the change I got maybe 5 hours of no service at my Internet domain. That’s it.

Last year I got a newer PC and just replaced the old one.

I always wondered, why people spend so much money on real servers….?

Last week, because of the new implamementation of SAP, we got a server, an HP ProLiant ML350, that came as the recommend hardware by the SAP integrators. So I found it was time to explore my previouse question, this is what I found:

• As expected, it can be a very powerful machine, this one came with a 4 core Xeon processor, and 1Gb of RAM which we upgraded to 5.
• As also expected it has many expansion possibilities.
• Disks are removable and the system has RAID support built in.
• Everything is hot swapable, or at least swapable, therefore in case of any damage -like my previous disk damage- you got nothing or very few down time.

But, come on, a single hard disk for this server is more expensive that my current PC-Server! and it has more Gigs!

So my recommendation is, if you don’t run a mission critical service that doesn’t allow some downtime, just get a good PC and you can save some bucks.

Since Linux supports software RAID, just get that extra protection and you are done.

I manage a company, that is part of a bigger group. The largest company in the group was looking for a solution to the problems related of using the current systems (Adminpaq, Compaq, Checkpaq) that are not really integrated, and -I have to tell- not very well designed.
So the solution was easy: an ERP.

Then the question was: which one? the first obvious answer was SAP, but the thing is so expensive that an alternative needed to be searched.

There are several thing that I don’t like about the idea of using SAP:

• The price, of course.
• The fact that it needs a Windows Server, with it’s corresponding problems, vulnerabilities and costs.
• The fact that clients need Windows PC’s, making a further migration to Linux harder (although a Linux Terminal Server Client can be used).
• It does not have a Web interface, making branches working and administration more complicated, and costly.
• There is no access to the source, so real modifications can not be done.

I found OpenBravo and OpenERP as the best solutions -specially OpenERP-, nevertheless the lack of integrators in Mexico, and the fact that we don’t even have an IT department in order to do an in-house implementation, moved the balance back to SAP, so we are going with that.

In the end since my company is the smallest, so it will be our share, and will not affect our budget too much.

Still interested in the KDE version of Ubuntu, today I installed Kubuntu Karmic Koala Alpha 5 inside VirtualBox.

Very much improved over the last time I tried, there were two things that I particularly liked about this version:

• Running the script to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions, was all what was needed to get the additions working, no need for manual configuration of the screen drivers. (This is imoportant because one of the reasons I’m not in Kubuntu is the bad support for screen and monitors, because I constantly switch my laptop from single monitor to dual head, or add a projector)
• OpenOffice.org
  

  Oxygen Style in OpenOffice.org calc

  has complete KDE4 integration, so It finally looks nice inside KDE (Very important: calc is the application I use most).

The new packaging system packagekit, was not really usable the last time I tried, it seems to be doing all right now.

It’s very possible that with the release of Karmic, I’ll be back in KDE

Mexican Flag

Today, September 16th 2009, we celebrate 199 years of the Mexican Independence from Spain.

The war was declared from Mexico to the Colonial Government during the night of September 15th, when the conspiracies new that they have been betrayed by a supporter, it all began in the town of Dolores by the Priest Miguel Hidalgo -that’s why the town is now named Dolores Hidalgo- , that night is when the celebration begins nowadays with the Grito de Dolores, the War that begun in 1810 ended untill 1821 where the First Mexian Empire was issued with Iturbide as the Emperor.

If you dig into the Mexican History, you will know that the people who organized the independence were Mexican-born Spaniards (called criollos), and if you go back to the Spanish Conquer of this land, you will see that the Army that Cortes used to conquer the Aztec Empire where the recruited warriors from the tribes that were enemies of the Aztecs….

So one interesting thing about Mexico is that the Spanish Conquest of Mexico was conducted by Mexicans and the Mexican Independence form Spain was conceived by Spanish .

I always liked math puzzles, this was my favorite book when I was a kid, it’s a book that tales a story of the adventures of an Arabian man named Beremiz who has very good mathematical skills, and during his journey he founds lots of mathematical puzzles to solve. But it’s not just a puzzles book, Is a story that includes puzzles, therefore it’s more interesting, and the whole thing is in a particular context.

This is not only a book for children, but also for grown ups.

I always thought that the author was Arab, but only in recent days, I found out that he’s Brazilian.

The first time I read about the Golden Rule (ethic of resiprocity) was in a filosofy book back when I was maybe 8 years old.
I don’t remember the name of the big book, but this rule is one of my more clear memmories about it.

This rule appears on nearly every culture and religion. Althought there are ancient documents in many cultures like Egyptians, Greek, Buddhism, Judaism, Taoism, Islam, etc the most famous version in western cultures is the younger one, taken from the bible in words of Jesus Christ:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

In general is really a very good advise, that can lead to peace, but there are certain situations where it creates a conflict, specially when the taste of what we want is not the same taste of the other people wants.

The most famous of this cases is a masochistic: he likes to be treated with pain (for whatever reasons he may have), if he treats you the way he would like you to treat him, would you like it?

Let’s imagine a not so distant scene:
A Christian would like to be taught about gospels and Christianity if he were not converted, so if he finds a non-converted he would try to convert him… but what makes him think that such person wants to be converted… This specific example is historically proven to lead to war.

And there is were the so-called platinum rule comes to add a correction

The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever possible, as they want to be done by.

Do unto others as they would want done unto them

I like the Platinum Rule way much better.

The God Delusion is a book written by the british biologist Richard Dawkins that provides a very comprehensive view of the non-thinking process called faith.

It’s a book openly written to un-convert to the converted, and for the same reason can be very controversial and some people even considered it as offensive (e.g. in the first chapter it explains the sins of the God of the Old Testament).

It provides evidence on why Natural Selection is a better theory than the so called theory of the Intelligent Design (The God hypothesis).

The book defends the children’s right to don’t be labeled as adherents of any religion only for that fact that their parents are. Children are free individuals and must think for them selves.

It provides the following scale to measure the belief of the persons:

1.00: Strong theist. 100 percent possibility of God. In the words of C.G. Jung, ‘I do not believe, I know.’

2.00: Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. ‘I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there

3.00: Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. ‘I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.’

4.00: Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. ‘God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.’

5.00: Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. ‘I don’t know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be sceptical.’

6.00: Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. ‘I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.’

7:00: Strong atheist. ‘I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung ‘knows’ there is one.’

The book explains that non-belivers (atheist) are happy, moral, balanced and healty persons (being an atheist is being considered as bad thing for many religious people, specialy in USA). And encourages the atheist to be prod of it.

I was switching channels on the TV the other night, and suddenly there was an image that got my attention, it was Jim Carrey performing in what looked like a thriller…. Jim Carrey in a Thriller? What? I had to see that!

It was just strange to see him in that kind of movies, but once you disconnect his face from your memories of silly comic movies, everything is OK. He did a good performance.

The movie is about a guy that starts to read a book and gets convinced that the book is based on his own. That book was about a person who finds out that the number 23 is on anything around him, his birth date, his address, his name, his wedding date, the pair of shoes of his wife, etc.

One fun coincidence is that the next day when I was grabbing my shoes I counted the pair of shoes that my wife has… and guess what: 23!

You can use this search to watch online.

9/9/9 (upside down 6/6/6) was the day when a religious fanatic kidnapped an Airplane in Mexico City, trying to get an interview with the mexican president, in order to warn him about a forthcoming earthquake, he said he got that information in a divine revelation… We have to tell that this person didn’t put the passangers in real risk because his bomb was fake.

When the guy was asked about his accomplices, he said: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.

The more important to note here is:

• Not any single religion has the mental illness monopoly.
• This kind of situations are the result of becoming placebo addicts (see this post).

Just for the records, the hijacker was a Christian evangelical pastor.